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leareth and maitimo 5 years after the events of no promise
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Leareth's smile broadens. :I love you! But you cannot tell anyone we are meeting today, even though it is very juicy gossip: 

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Oh no! That will be very difficult but I will try very hard.

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Snuggle.

:...I ought to unpack some of my things in the other room and at least make it appear as though I slept there: Leareth sends eventually. :Also I ought to properly arrange some meetings to discuss tech improvements in Valdemar with the addition of Arda magic artifacts. I assume the lights in the garden and such are powered that way, but I know King Randale had been holding off on spreading this too far beyond Haven too quickly, simply because rapid change can be - difficult. Vanyel says that he wished to give the Council more time to get used to the concept of other worlds existing at all, before throwing any more at them: 

And he's had his own nebulous worries about how the gods of Velgarth will react, but it's been five years and nothing disastrous seems to have happened. Valdemar - isn't neutral ground exactly, not like the north, but it's an area with less overt intervention than neighbouring regions, which is one of several reasons he had wanted it as the core of an empire. If the Groveborn agrees with a plan, Leareth feels that it's not unreasonable to at least try it and see what happens. 

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Do we know how the gods might contact us if they want to negotiate?

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:Hmm: Leareth has to stop and give that question some consideration. :They - do not usually do that. I made many attempts to open communications for that, in the past, and - well, it never worked and at one point visiting a temple to Vkandis resulted in my being set on fire: He's pretty matter-of-fact about it, it's not actually the worst way that he's been murdered over the centuries. 

:That being said, both Vkandis and the Star-Eyed have avatars or representatives who can speak to mortals directly. Valdemar is allied with Karse and Queen Karis has a Suncat; Suncats are a little like Companions, but with a more direct link to the god that created them, so they can serve as His mouthpiece. Or I suppose Vkandis could directly possess Karis and speak through her, He has done it before. The Star-Eyed Goddess has leshy'a Kal'enedral – the spirits of priest-warriors who served Her. They usually exist in the spirit world but they can manifest physically as well: 

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Okay. So they can get in touch if they feel like it. I think those meetings are a good idea, though I don't know whether I should sit in on them. I guess I can give estimates of our artifact production.

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:I think it is quite reasonable for you to want a say in what resources your people offer to Velgarth, but I would also be happy to have the meetings separately and catch you up: 

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We're going to offer as much as we can, they're dying. But I might want to spend the time getting to know more people here, and catch up with you afterwards.

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:That makes sense: Leareth, in no particular rush to move, starts vaguely musing on what kinds of magical improvements could be made across the Kingdom, now that they're not bottlenecked on mages for powering spells. Water purification seems like a big one, actually; a lot of more remote places in Valdemar still don't have reliably safe drinking water. Heating in winter would be helpful, since the kingdom is far north enough to have fairly brutal winters. Permanent Gates, maybe, but they ought to solve the shutdown-precaution research problem first before building any more of a network... 

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I think getting crops to grow better ought to be a top priority, it seems like lots of bad things are downstream of having to spend most of your time farming if you want enough food. Weather magic - I don't know if there's anything that's for crop growth directly -

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:Not very well - it sounds as though Arda magic does this more efficiently. Weather-magic is unfortunately difficult to usefully do via artifacts, since it is a fairly freeform technique rather than a precisely replicable spell. Some of my researchers up north have been working on that, though, since having an infinite power source makes it much more promising. There are simpler techniques that could be adapted in the meantime, though - large weather-barriers could protect crops from early frost, for example, and there are some spells that improve soil fertility. Also, pulling plows with magic rather than using oxen or horses, and making other tools for planting and harvest, looks potentially promising. And the permanent Gate network will help a great deal since it means that food can be very easily transported around, mitigating local crop failures: 

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That sounds good. And we're already working, I think, on figuring out whether the plants of Valinor, all of which are edible, grow here; if they do, it might make sense to replace some local forests, though there'll be unintended effects if we replace too many of them.

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:I would be concerned that the plants are not used to winter, but I suppose permanently weather-barriered zones could address that as well:

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Some parts of Valinor have winter! The far north and the far south and the mountains. Snow is good for sports and sculpture and so on.

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:Right: It's too bad he never made it to see those parts of Valinor before getting his magic back and thereafter being banned by the Valar. :Oh! That gives me an idea. Of a possible day trip, I mean. There are some very beautiful places in the mountains that separate where my organization was based from the Valdemar region. It is comfortably within my Gate-range although I will be quite tired on the return: 

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:Then we can do it once we are caught up on meetings and such here: 

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I will look forward to it.

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:Mmm: Leareth snuggles for a bit longer before reluctantly disentangling himself. :I had better go start getting ready: 

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All right. I'll see you later.

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Leareth does another short-range Gate back to his room, to avoid needing to worry about suspiciously exiting from the same room as Maitimo in front of inconveniently arriving servants. Also he dropped his travel-bag with his clothes there. He bathes, gets dressed and redoes his hair, gathers up the relevant notes, and then goes out to find breakfast and Mindspeak Dara about who he should meet with. 

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He does the same thing, with more singing and no Gates.

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Dara has arranged for Maitimo to meet Herald Tantras, who she explains was King's Own before her in an unusual and complicated series of events (that she suggests he not bring up). 

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There are plenty of other things to talk about! Like how the scientific and artistic collaborations are going and what sights he should see while he's here and what he thinks magic would be best used for.

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Tantras, who prefers to go by Tran, seems slightly uncomfortable talking about magic and particularly about Vanyel or Leareth, but he has lots to say on the scientific collaboration side, and can recommend some particularly scenic areas around Valdemar; he explains that most Heralds spend much of their time riding around circuits, and he's been all over the Kingdom that way. 

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